Suzy Ismail – NJSCBWI Closing Keynote

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So it's an interesting dynamic when you're trying to write

particularly about a culture or a faith that you may not be a part

of, that the key to being able to enter into that world is to

immerse yourself in that world. And multicultural writing, or

writing from a diverse perspective is no different than the writing

that we all do day in and day out. You know, there was this beautiful

quote that I wanted to share with you, which is that all writing is

about crossing boundaries. Good writers learn how to inhabit the

skins of others, even those whose life experiences are very

different from their own. So in a very real sense, the skills you

need to successfully write across cultures are the same skills you

need to master in order to be a good writer, regardless of your

subject.

And I find that this whole is incredibly true. We all have

different experiences, we've all experienced the world in different

ways. We all come from our own worldview. And we can put that

into our writing, we can incorporate that into our writing.

And that in itself makes it more authentic. But what happens when

you do want to step outside yourself, and you want to write in

a voice that may not be natural to you, that may not be what you

lived or what you grew up with. But you identify that there is an

issue out there. And you need a character in your book that

represents a certain culture or a faith or an ethnic minority? What

do you do?

First of all, it's about literary literary anthropology, being able

to immerse yourself and study the people of that culture. Please

don't try to write a book about Muslims just by watching Fox News.

Focus on the people themselves, get to know someone have that

faith or that background, or immerse yourself in that culture.

Go to little towns and areas that may be known for having, you know,

a diverse group people that you want to write into your stories.

There's a beautiful little last passage, if you have a chance to

read it up. It's called the NASA Remo by Horus minor. And it was

written quite some time ago, in the 1950s, I believe, Horace

miners, a sociologist, and he wrote about this culture, this

exotic culture where people would, you know, bake their heads in

little oven in order to make their hair look nice, where people would

lacerate their faces with sharp objects in the pursuit of looking

clean, where people would use hog hairs with some magical potions on

them to rub them inside their teeth. Sounds like a strange

culture, right?

But when we look at the word nurseryman, and we spell it

backwards, we see that it actually smells American. And what he was

describing in that moment, was, you know, women who go to

hairdressers and put their heads in the, in the hairdryer, you

know, us as humans, you know, back then in the 1950s, I guess the

bristles might have been looking like like hog hairs on the

toothbrushes with the toothpaste on top. The lacerating of the face

would be the shaving, of course. And yet for someone that steps

outside of the culture, and looks at our American culture with

different eyes, it can become something strange, something

exotic. And we tend to do this with other cultures that we don't

belong to, we tend to look at them as the other. And that can seep

into our writing if we're not careful.

So focus on that immersion, but not just the verbal immersion.

It's not just speaking to someone, but it's about understanding the

nonverbal as well. Looking at how people stand next to each other,

how close or how far away? Do they stand next to each other in that

culture? How do children interact with their parents? What are the

politics of touch? What are gender relations all about in that

society? See the culture understand it, smell it, taste it,

eat the foods, move in with a family that may be willing to

adopt you for a couple of months, you know, but find the culture.

And that's how you find your voice.

Also, of course, learning how to speak in the same time, I often

get questions from people about you know, Arabic words, you know,

did I say this right? Is this is this what it means in the culture?

How about this? Is this a phrase that's normally said? But you

know, for each of us when we're writing, whether we're writing

children's books, are ya or middle grade or adult? There is a

language that we need to adopt. And you know, I put some of these

words up there BRB, TGIF, see you later lmao, Fox, PG, I don't know,

whatever my teens are texting these days.

But all of this texting language, it's something that's also found

its way into our writing into our stories that we tell because it's

part of the culture part of the generation right now. You know,

recently my youngest was not my eight year old was running around

the house saying, oh, Ma, oh, Ma, and I'm like racking my brain. I'm

like, What the heck is oh Ma? And so I stopped and I asked her what

is Oma? And she looks at me, she's like, you don't know and I'm like,

No, so she said it's oh my Allah, you know, which Allah

Light is the Arabic word for God.

And in her mind, she didn't fully make the transition from the

Arabic word of God to God. So these are the types of linguistic

elements that we begin to understand in a culture. And that

we see. And you know, when I asked her, she said, Oh, my friends say

that.

And so we see that this language is adopted, but I wouldn't have

known that if I wasn't around my child.

So how do you do your research? Assuming you can't find a family

that will take you in for a month? What else do you do? Again, social

media is a beautiful thing. Um, one of my adult books that I've

been working on for quite some time now, and I've been kind of

holding on too tightly, because I keep revising, and revising. Um,

it's called Voices of the Arab Spring. And it's a chronicle of

the 18 different countries that went through the Arab Spring. And

I've collected different stories from individuals who live in those

countries. And when I first started this project, I began to

reach out to people on social media, I follow some people on

Twitter, I found them on Facebook, those who are prolific who are

writing blogs who have things to say, and every single person that

I contacted, had a story to share. And they wanted to share that

story.

And because this book is now transitioning into a companion

copy of Hawaii, iron, and G, I'll be traveling this summer, actually

to Jordan and Syria, to interview some of the children in the

orphanages. They're in the refugee camps and in the medical clinics.

And I'm hoping that in that way, you know, even though I can say

that I am of the Muslim faith, even though I can say that I speak

the Arabic language, I know that I need to be there to experience the

stories that I want to share, that in order to find the authentic

voice, I need to know what it's really like. And I know we don't

always have that opportunity. But there are ways that we can connect

with others who do have that opportunity, and who are able to

go that extra mile and find out and share with you what is on

their mind.

One of the fears that we often see in you know, this this truck for

We Need Diverse Books, is sometimes the idea of the white

man's burden. And for those of you who are familiar with Richard

Caitlin's Kipling's poem, you know, that he spoke about this

white man's burden, this idea that we need to save the world. And our

ethnocentrism, as Americans often puts us in that position, to think

that we're here to save all those who can't save themselves. I

cannot tell you how many times I've been approached and told, you

know, I can liberate you from the impression that you are living

under. And my response is always like, do I look like an oppressed

woman to you. But this is something that we have grown up

with this idea that we have to save the world, you don't have to

save the world, you just have to tell it stories.

Some of the books that have always spoken to me in terms of you know,

diversity in terms of telling stories and of other worlds worlds

that I may not know that I may not have lived but want to experience.

These are just a few of the books that have spoken to me, and I'm

sure there's many, many more out there that you love reading and

that have spoken to you. But you know, I remember when I read

Memoirs of a Geisha, I had to keep going back to look at the author's

name Arthur golden, because I was like, Is this a pen name, he knows

the culture so well. And I kept thinking, this has to be a geisha

in disguise, who's written this book, because it was so

beautifully told. And because it was so culturally relevant. And

this is the authenticity that we strive for in our writing, that

connection that we can have with a diverse audience, while speaking

from the voice of that diverse audience.

Now, the impact of our words, of course, we all know, you know,

when we have that book out there, we've written that blog post,

we've written an article, and someone comes back to us and says,

you know, that changed my life, what you wrote, it affected me, it

impacted me. And as writers, I think that's probably the

strongest words that we could ever hear. And as artists also when we

draw, or we paint, or we create something, and if we put it out in

the world, and we get that feedback, that it affected

someone, we know that we've made a difference. And so we have to ask

ourselves, sometimes, you know, do the words create our world? Or

does the world create our words? And I tend to be on the side of

the theory of socio linguistic relativity, that our words create

our world, because it's what we choose to put on paper that tells

the stories of those around us. It's what we choose to put out

there in the world, that becomes a priority. That becomes important.

You know, just a few days ago, this book was released. Its

Ramadan, curious, George. Ramadan is the month of fasting for

Muslims. And it begins on Monday, actually.

And you know, I Isha sallied. The author of written in the stars a

book that I posted in that panorama that I had just briefly

before. She said that when she received her box of books, her

five year old son picked up this book, and he looked at it for

quite some time.

And then he turned to her and opened his eyes wide and

whispered, does that mean curious, George knows about me.

And this is the connection that our diverse books can bring to the

world.

You know, just yesterday, a great leader, an icon, someone that is

well known and beloved to so many, Muhammad Ali, the boxer passed

away.

And my son woke up in the morning, and you know, who's listening, we

have the news on and you know, my husband and I were speaking about

it. And he said to me, Wow, my name is over today.

And it was the first time that my, my son could say that my 12 year

old son could say that in a positive light. And I saw him kind

of, you know, puff out his chest a little bit. And he kept, you know,

boxing his little sister all day long.

But he felt something he felt a connection for once he felt his

name was associated on the news was something that was being

celebrated, rather than someone that was being condemned. And that

made a difference to him.

Now, Muhammad Ali has some beautiful quotes, and one of my

favorites is this one. It's the lack of faith that makes people

afraid of meeting challenges. And I believe in myself.

And that's what we all need to do. Because as I looked around this

weekend, at the beautiful art that was displayed, as I looked around,

at the authors, the illustrators, the writers, the ones who are just

beginning their journeys, and the ones who are already far into

their journeys, as I look around today, even at all of you who are

sitting here, I know that we all have stories to tell, I know that

we all have something to say, we all have something to share with

the world. And you don't know what it is that you may share, that

will change someone's life, that will lift a child out of that

yearning for blond hair and blue eyes, and make that person believe

that they are just not good enough, but they are good, and

that they deserve to be here in this world. And that's the power

of writing. That's the power of drawing. That's the power of

creating, because we have that gift to be able to give it to the

world. So don't give up. And don't keep quiet, because your story has

to be taught.

And I just want to end by sharing a poem with you from one of my

favorite authors from Pablo Neruda. And the poem is called

keeping quiet.

Now, we will count to 12. And we will all keep still,

for once on the face of the earth. Let's not speak in any language.

Let's stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be

an exotic moment, without rush. Without engines, we would all be

together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea, would

not harm whales, and the man gathering salt would look at his

hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas wars with fire, victories

with no survivors would put on clean clothes, and walk about with

their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be

confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about. I want

no truck with that.

If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving,

and for once, could do nothing. Perhaps a huge silence might

interrupt the sadness, of never understanding ourselves and

threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the Earth can teach us as when everything seems that and

later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to 12 and you keep quiet and I will go thank you